A trail of trial and error

My 200th post! wow. So...here it goes (sound like Keenan and Kel) - as you know I'm working on the animation for FNA Films.
I feel like even in the last few days I've learned a lot just from experimenting really. I've never done a proper cut out animation or ever used a multiplane before and I really understand and appreciate how its used now and can see so much potential in it already for future things too. I never fully realised just how much difference it makes to the perspective of everything once its set up on layers.

Another major thing is the lighting and I spent a lot of time today and tonight (whilst melting under the heat of the lighting)- trying out different ways. It's quite tricky and taking a long time to get the set up right. To cast shadows in the right way- not too much for this piece and to have the lighting right.

I won't be posting the final animation when it's completed, not just yet as its part of the film but I'll post some pics of 'the making' and for now here are some just to show what I mean with the lighting and layers and how it can look.

As you can tell, these are really rough and obviously show all the framing etc around it. The red in the background will be removed to replace with the ink footage. Something like this...

Then these are just examples of experimenting around with getting layers right etc...

And..... I have some really exciting news coming soon!!!! Can't wait. It will be really exciting to work on and something I will learn a lot from as always. So lots more updates on this soon and also continuing with the 'The Stagg Do' animation.

Dean- thanks! Yeah I will get to show the animation at some point though. Thanks about the shadows- that's something I've been working on this weeked. They were testers to see what it was like (almost there). haha the teaser! I'll be able to say a lot more next week ;)